On Prayer
You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.
All I know is that prayer constructs a velvet bridge
And walking it we are aloft, as on a springboard,
Above landscapes the color of ripe gold
Transformed by a magic stopping of the sun.
That bridge leads to the shore of Reversal
Where everything is just the opposite and the word ‘is’
Unveils a meaning we hardly envisioned.
Notice: I say we; there, every one, separately,
Feels compassion for others entangled in the flesh
And knows that if there is no other shore
We will walk that aerial bridge all the same.
-Czeslaw Milosz
© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
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2 Responses
Somehow reminds me of a wonderful untitled poem by Eunice Tietjens:
The stone grows old.
Eternity is not for stones.
But
I shall go down from
This airy space, this swift
white peace, this stinging exultation
And time will close about me
and my soul stir to the
Rhythm of the daily round.
Yet
Having known
life will not press so close
And always I shall feel time
Ravel thin about me.
For once I stood
in the white windy
presence of eternity.
Lovely poem, Christine, and dazzling pictures. They indeed invoke “the bridge”.